Joy - a spiritual practice
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Joy is an essential spiritual practice growing out of faith, grace,
gratitude, hope and love.  It is the pure and simple delight in being
alive.  Joy is our elated response to feelings of happiness, experiences
of pleasure, and awareness of abundance.  It is also the deep satisfaction
we know when we are able to serve others and be glad for their good
fortune.

Invite joy into your life by staging celebrations.  Host festivities to
mark transactions and changes in your life.  Toast moments of happiness
you notice as you go through your day.

Dance - jump for joy - as often as possible.  Life is not meant to be
endured; it is to be enjoyed.

Joy will usually be part of a set of symptoms presenting in your life. The
best protocol is to be thankful for the intensity of these feelings. When
you are experiencing sorrow and sadness, when the tears are flowing,
remember they can be stepping-stones to joy.

The atom's soul is nothing but energy.  Spirit blazes in the dullest clay.  
The life of every man - the heart of it - is pure and holy joy. A life of
joy is not in seeking happiness.  But in experiencing and simply being the
circumstances of our life as they are.

The silent ability to impart to others the light of Divine Intelligence,
and all its attendant qualities of joy, warmth, insight, and revelation,
is captured in Sufi phrase, 'the smiling forehead'.  For, illumination is
always linked with a kind of smile, like the mysterious, lingering smile
of the Buddha.

Mary Ann Brussat